The Guild Cinema on Friday hosts the return of "Pornotopia," the upscale festival of dirty movies that has been banned in Albuquerque the past four years. I have a history with the event. Back in 2007, I was still a reporter at the Albuquerque Tribune, and I covered the controversial first night, when city zoning inspectors were threatening to stop it from happening.
Here's the lede of the story I co-wrote for the next morning's paper:
Moviegoers waiting in the drizzle to see "Annie Sprinkle's Amazing World
of Orgasms" at the Guild Cinema in Nob Hill were in for quite a shock:
It looked like the city was shutting down this weekend's adults-only
"Pornotopia" film festival.
That show went on, but the next year, at the second annual festival, the city fined the Guild for showing an X-rated movie outside of an approved municipal zone. The Guild appealed to the District Court and then the Court of Appeals. Both upheld the fine. As a law clerk, I helped draft the opinion at the Court of Appeals. You can read it here.
This past summer, the New Mexico Supreme Court overturned that opinion, and in a 4-1 decision ruled that the city's ordinance banning the exhibition of pornographic films was not intended to reach occasional instances such as the Guild's, where a festival occurs only once a year. That opinion can be found here.
While one could take issue with the reasoning of the high court, it can't be denied that the decision is a victory not only for the Guild but for the First Amendment. And for the women who sponsor the festival and run Self Serve, the upscale sex shop in east Nob Hill.
KOCH (B) - This is a faithful, balanced, entertaining examination of the career of the three-term mayor of New York City, Ed Koch. It's difficult not to be charmed by the outspoken old pol or by this documentary.
Director Neil Barsky goes well beyond the facade of the catchphrase "How'm I doin'??" and crafts a well-rounded portrait of the man, not shying away from Koch's perceived faults. The mayor is taken to task for his checkered record on race relations and the battle against AIDS and for his willingness to get into bed with greedy developers and shady political bosses. Pastor Calvin Butts gets off one of the best lines in discussing Koch's record in the black community: "He was worse than racist; he was an opportunist."
Barsky has done his homework here. He's blessed with loads of vintage footage from the '60s, '70s and '80s. He tags along with Koch to a family gathering. He gets the mayor to let down his guard and let fly with some salty language. And there's his final shot, of the 86-year-old Koch in a cab as it nears the Queensboro bridge that was named after him, with the city lights sparkling and the old guy casually chatting away. Roll credits.
KUMARE (B) - It's tough to talk about this without revealing too much. So I'll keep it short.
This is a mockumentary by a young man named Vikram Gandhi who, curious about what makes a guru or a charlatan, decides to pose as the fictional title character and sell Southwesterners on his brand of philosophy and spirituality created from whole cloth. We know this will build toward a big reveal, and Gandhi handles it well, and most of the dupes seems to be good sports up until that point; if they hadn't been, they wouldn't have signed off in the end.
This plays like Borat Lite. On the one hand, that means it's not mean and vulgar. On the other hand, we get hit over the head repeatedly with Gandhi's wishy-washy justification for being a dick: He's actually helping folks discover the true inner guru. This has its moments, and it is slickly produced, and Gandhi is likeable enough to make it work.
BORN IN CHICAGO (B-minus) - It was a Boomer fest. I was the youngest person in the audience at the Guild Cinema, joining my elder generation for a screening of a film about their co-horts, the white folk who infiltrated the Chicago blues scene in the 1960s.
This is a paint-by-numbers rendering of that groovy, heady era, when the likes of Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield and Charlie Musslewhite drove the now sound back to its origins. In generous archival footage, we see the boys sticking out like sore thumbs in all-black South Side clubs and later acquitting themselves well musically in the shadow of towering figures like Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and Junior Wells. We have to take the word of the younger men that everyone got along swell and that the white guys weren't seen as interlopers stealing the music of black culture. Mick Jagger shows up to represent the British Invasion that was going on at the same time; in retrospect, he's surprised at the chutzpah of the cheeky lads recording "Little Red Rooster" in the early days of Beatlemania.
Director John Anderson shows patience with his interview subjects, letting them drone on a bit with their stories rather than chopping the segments into dizzying soundbites. It offers a more leisurely pace, and let's the grey-haired survivors spin some fun tales, embellishments and all. What we don't get is a serious examination of race relations and the grander idea of the co-opting of the original sound of the blues.
BONUS TRACK
The old guys from "Born in Chicago" jam at the legendary Chicago-area club Fitzgerald's a few years back:
One of my most-anticipated releases of the year, and the rest:
A return to dramatic features from master filmmaker, Jia Zhang-ke ("The World"), "A Touch of Sin."
A tour de force from flashy director Steve McQueen, "12 Years a Slave."
The trailer didn't thrill me, but the reviewers are raving about the second movie from J.C. Chandor ("Margin Call"), "All Is Lost," with Robert Redford stranded on a yacht in the Indian Ocean.
Parents track the educational progress of their son and one of his friends in the documentary "American Promise."
James Toback uses the Cannes film festival to examine the business of movie distribution in the HBO doc "Seduced and Abandoned."
An interesting-looking documentary about urban planning, "The Human Scale."
Should we give Bruno Dumont ("Humanite," "Twenty-Nine Palms") another chance? He's got Juliette Binoche and he keeps things short in the biopic "Camille Claudel 1915."
Pauls Giamatti and Rudd are a pair of thieves in New York in "All Is Bright."
A powerful documentary about Cambodian rice farmers battling the progression of capitalism, "A River Changes Course."
The latest from the difficult Matthew Porterfield ("Hamilton"), the music-infused "I Used to Be Darker."
A fun-looking found-footage exercise in teen drama, "The Dirties."
Two documentaries about extreme athletes and adventurers: "McConkey" and "The Summit."
A look at the twisted cartoonist, "Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird."
I saw this at the Santa Fe Film Festival nearly a year ago, and I look forward to another viewing on video: the heartfelt tribute to one of the great American songwriters of the 20th century, "A.K.A. Doc Pomus."
BIG STAR: NOTHING CAN HURT ME (B) - This isn't so much a documentary about a '70s band (the fleeting would-be pop legends Big Star) as it is a tribute to studio rats from that analog heyday.
Alex Chilton, recovering from his celebrity run as teen sensation in 1967 with the Box Tops and their smash hit "The Letter," and the brooding Chris Bell tooled around Ardent Studios with two Memphis pals in the early '70s. Eventually adopting the ambitious name Big Star, they crafted a landmark album, the pristine "No. 1 Record," which went nowhere, thanks in part to lousy distribution. (The label would be gobbled by Stax Records just as the soul giant descended into bankruptcy.) Superstardom eluded them, but they grew to be cult legends.
This was a snakebit band. They had essentially broken up before their second album, similarly hallowed, came out in 1974. Bell would die in a car crash at the classic rock age of 27. Chilton would spend the rest of his career pushing the boundaries of idiosyncratic music, perpetually determined to thumb his nose at the industry that traumatized him as a youth. He and bassist Andy Hummel died a few years ago before reaching middle age.
The joy of this movie comes from the early footage of ratty-haired college-age kids working out their songs. Directors Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori linger on images of the equipment -- knobs, needles, dancing lights on the soundboard. It's truly a paean to studio craftsmanship. And the boys of Big Star truly crafted those albums. The songs resonate today, still sounding fresh and crisp. It's timeless pop -- as much Avett Brothers or My Morning Jacket as it is Gram Parsons or Raspberries. One of the main drawbacks of the movie is the way the filmmakers too often cut the songs off; they fall short of conveying just how powerful the music could be.
One fun sequence involves the story of a brilliant marketing scheme cooked up by Ardent: a Memphis junket (headlined by Big Star) for the alt-journalists popping up amid the burgeoning rock-critic scene (Lester Bangs, Cameron Crowe, etal.). The movie culminates with an alt-star tribute concert (it's fun to see Mike Mills of R.E.M., producer Mitch Easter, and Chris Stamey of the dB's, southern rock compatriots) -- but here, too, the songs get snipped to shreds.
This is a bittersweet look at a lively era, and some young men who left behind a thoughtful legacy.
THE ICEMAN (B) - Michael Shannon was born for the role of a hardened hit man from the gritty "Goodfellas" era. This movie, based on a true story, succeeds mostly because of him, but it can be a chore at times.
Shannon plays stone-faced Richie Kuklinski, an emotionally hollow lug who finds it surprisingly easy to snuff out lives. Socially retarded, he does manage to woo Winona Ryder, lying about his first job (he dubbed porn dialogue not Disney films) and then, when they're settled in the suburbs with two darling girls, about his second gig (claiming his mob money came from currency trading). She either plays dumb or is dumb. His amazing luck at surrounding himself with these loving females will be undermined by one of his few soft spots: he refuses to kill women and children.
The film skips quickly from era to era, from the late '50s to the '80s. While it's fun to watch sideburns sprawl and recede, the frequent costume changes are a regular distraction. You can see the production crew struggling to achieve authenticity over and over. The time-lapse narrative also makes the whole movie feel rushed.
The supporting cast certainly helps make this a worthwhile effort, led by Ray Liotta as Roy Demeo, the mob boss who hires Richie. It's a tribute to Liotta's skills (and face) that he can still bring nuance to what long ago became a typecast role for him. (He also stood out earlier this year in "The Place Beyond the Pines.") The others: David Schwimmer as a twitchy mob underling (with porn 'stache and ponytail); Stephen Dorff in a cameo as Richie's brother; John Ventimiglia ("Sopranos") as another member of Demeo's crew; and Chris Evans (aka Captain America) as an ice cream man who makes creative use of his truck's freezer.
The dialogue at times crackles. "If you want to complain about life, you've got the wrong fuckin' guy," Liotta spits. When a rival sees Richie approach the guy wisecracks, "So, is it my lucky day -- or my last?"
Too often this feels like a retread of classic mob movies or '70s urban dramas (or worse, '70s urban TV shows). But Shannon (subtle when revealing Richie's backstory) and crew bring some heart to the production, and there are just enough twists in the story to keep you glued to the action.
BONUS TRACK
Big Star started earning big props by the mid-'80s. Here's a big-hair version of "September Gurls" by the Bangles:
Maybe his shtick will get old soon, and maybe this upcoming release will turn out to be a dud, but the trailer for "The Grand Budapest Hotel" looks like typical Wes Anderson bloody good fun, with a delicious cast and another world all its own.
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (B+) - Joss Whedon serves up a modern take on Shakespeare, with a luscious black-and-white film populated by talented and appealing actors. I spent the first 20 minutes mostly lost trying to decipher Whedon's dialogue, which is faithful to the Bard's original.
The only actor I recognized was Clark Gregg ("Sports Night," "The New Adventures of Old Christine") as Leonato, who is marrying off his daughter Hero (Jillian Morgese). The others are mostly veterans of Whedon's previous projects. (The only thing of Whedon's I've seen is about two seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer.") That includes the irresistible duo of Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof as the squabbling would-be couple Beatrice and Benedick. Finally, the small crowd I was with at the Southwest Film Center laughed at every move of Nathan Fillion (from Whedon's cult hit "Firefly") as Detective Dogberry, as if they were founders of his fan club.
I enjoyed not knowing the cast and instead letting them earn their accolades through the sheer force of their performances. They were in good hands with Whedon. He combines mesmerizing imagery with the Swiss timing of a precision storyteller. The narrative hits every mark, as taught in screenwriting classes, and I'm not sure whether that makes Whedon a hack or a genius. With this film, he proves himself to be a modern-day Orson Welles. At its best, "Much Ado" is about as entertaining as moviemaking gets.
IN THE HOUSE (B+) - Francois Ozon maintains his near-perfect record. I've liked every movie of his that I've seen.* Here, we get less of his mournful side and more of his playful side, with the tale of a bitter high school literature teacher (he calls his students "barbarians") taking one student under his wing only to become engrossed in the real-life serial that the boy crafts with each assignment.
The student, Claude (Ernst Umhauer, suggesting a fresh-faced Ferris Bueller or a Hardy Boy), tutors a dorky classmate, Rapha (a rather Screech-like Bastien Ughetto) in math, mainly as a way to infiltrate his pal's home and hang out with Rapha's goofy father and attractive, impossibly middle class mother (the elegant Emmanuelle Seigner ("The Diving Bell and Butterfly")).
Ozon is nothing if not a master at casting. It's tough to go wrong when you've got Fabrice Luchini ("Intimate Strangers") and Kristen Scott Thomas ("I've Loved You So Long") in the third and fourth spot in your lineup. They play the teacher, Germain, and his patient wife, Jeanne, who is struggling to make an art gallery succeed. (The Pornographic Nazi exhibit is worth the rental alone.) The couple has a casual ease, and when Germain starts reading young Claude's soap opera about the happy suburban family, they're both hooked. They can't wait for the next installment, as each one ends, invariably with "to be continued."
What Claude has created is an old-fashioned serial. And Ozon, the master storyteller, has crafted a clever riff. How much is true? How much is fantasy on the part of motherless Claude? Ozon suggests a twist at the end, but we can't be sure. He lulls you with what seems like a harmless trifle of a movie; but he's really just toying with that idea. No, there's substance here. The fact that you may not notice that is part of Ozon's continued genius.A suivre ...
IN THE FAMILY (B) - This is quite a curiosity. At times it's a film like few others. For starters, I've never seen a movie about a gay Asian Southerner in Tennessee, so right there Patrick Wang has the viewer pleasantly off balance if not intrigued.
Wang wrote, directed and stars as Joey, a craftsman who moves in with his partner, Cody (Trevor St. John from TV's "One Life to Live"), and Cody's son, Chip -- but then has to fight Cody's sister for custody of the boy after Cody dies unexpectedly. Wang's storytelling is shaky at times, but he manages to avoid Hallmark Channel cliches while deepening the narrative with effective flashbacks to the origins of Joey and Cody's relationship.
Wang also is confident as a director. He likes to park the camera at one spot in a room, usually at waist level, and let an entire scene play out from that static perspective. Returning to the same shot is particularly effective when Wang is conveying how stunned Joey is by Cody's death while Chip continues on with the same kitchen routine we saw earlier, during happier times.
Wang is in command for about two hours. Unfortunately, the film runs a hefty 169 minutes. And during those final 49 minutes, it all falls apart. We get a jarring shift in tone, and the Hallmark Channel cliches burst forth. Suddenly it's a completely different movie. And suddenly Wang seems like a maudlin, manipulative hack.
This showed promise of being a surprising indie revelation. And for nearly two hours, it's a fascinating slice of cinema. But in the end, it turns into a saccharine slog.
* BONUS TRACKS My favorite Francois Ozon films, in order:
GRAVITY (B) - I had a good time at the movies this weekend. I was transported into space by Alfonso Cuaron's ambitious, if seriously flawed, fable about a pair of astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) stranded in space with little hope of surviving.
This is not a great film. (And we can't say we weren't warned. A week ago I noted the red flags that came with this project.) But it's skillfully shot and is so harrowing at times that it takes your breath away. (I instinctively reached for an inhaler a few times.)
The screenplay here is mostly a flimsy collection of cliches. Both characters -- Bullock's Ryan Stone and Clooney's Matt Kowalski
(yeah, right) -- come saddled with hoary back stories. He's on his last
mission before retirement (ho-hum, I hope things don't go horribly wrong
up there!) and Stone, on her first mission, has been recently slammed by the death of a child. And, let's face it, astronauts have been trapped in space plenty of times. Cuaron (who wrote the script with his son) doesn't bring much new to the table here storywise, though his special effects are out of this world. (Sorry, occasionally I let slip cringeworthy blurbs.) I didn't see this in 3-D (though you can't help noticing those effects throughout), but Cuaron expertly draws you in from the outset with a spectacular opening sequence that seems to be one continuous floating, rotating, disorienting shot. He and his mega-budget tricks never let up in crafting a world of wonder.
This project likely would have been an embarrassing joke without Bullock and her terrific performance, especially during the homestretch when she carries the entire film after Clooney goes away for a while. Bullock is extremely likeable and believable as a rookie thrust into a crisis. She freaks out, she thumbs through manuals, she mutters to herself, she sweetly contemplates her mortality. When, exasperated at one point, she utters "I hate space," it's a laugh-out-loud line that breaks the tension and works for her character. Clooney, on the other hand, is as bad as I've seen him in quite a while; he does nothing more here than play a self-aware, wisecracking George Clooney. It's a major misstep for the film.
For a while, Stone and Kowalski are tethered together as they cavort outside their damaged spacecraft, and the symbolism of the umbilical cord (with a gender reversal of the father figure) is unmistakable. Cuaron drives that home with a shot of Stone floating in the fetal position, in profile, as if she's in the womb. The director lingers on that shot a beat too long, until you feel his sharp elbow in your ribcage. But you can't begrudge him that obvious sight gag, because his ending is a clever completion of that thought; it's even somewhat profound in a way the rest of the movie doesn't prepare the viewer for. It's Bullock's finest moment.
For this all to work as a movie, you truly have to suspend disbelief, shut down your brain a bit, and accept the fact that you're in Hollywoodland -- give in to the absurdities on display. (Scientists are having a field day with all of the story's technical flaws, a few of which are rather ridiculous.) But if you're willing to go with the flow and play make-believe, you will be rewarded with a gripping film.
POSTSCRIPT
Correspondent Lionfish summed "Gravity" up this way: "With a lot of editing, that could be a pretty good music video -- with better music, of course."
SALINGER (B+) - I was predisposed against this documentary. From all accounts, it smacked of crass exploitation.
But I liked it. Though deeply flawed structurally, it plays like a really good "American Masters" profile. (This will air on PBS in January. It's already streaming on Netflix.) It tells you a LOT about the larger-than-life author of "Catcher in the Rye," and it is exhaustively researched.
I cringed as I hit the "play" button, afraid that I was invading the privacy of the author who dropped out of our culture to live in seclusion in New Hampshire. But it wasn't like that at all. I think it would have been different were Salinger still alive; but with him gone, this is just another history project examining the life of a famous author. It's not overly intrusive; even though his love life is prominently featured, it is always respectfully handled. Granted, it doesn't show much appreciation for his writing. (I
assume the filmmakers were not permitted to use excerpts from his work.) But neither is this the work of a hack.
The talking heads, including several biographers, help round out the stories. Even the celebrities (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Martin Sheen, Edward Norton) are thoughtful and even insightful, especially on the topic of celebrity. The highlight of the film is the interview sessions with Jean Miller, who met Salinger when she was 14 and he was about 30 on a beach in Daytona, Fla. (the same place he later broke up with Joyce Maynard, his teenage love from the 1970s). She speaks fondly and matter-of-factly about their courtship in a manner that suggests Salinger wasn't so much a creep as a clumsy, scarred lost soul. She seems to have known him well, and her appearance here comes off as respectful and meaningful.
The footage is impressive. We get silent film of Salinger cavorting in France with grateful Parisians during the liberation. Rejection letters from the New Yorker. A few rare snapshots of Salinger at home or around town, images that recur frequently but never get tiring.
What we could use a lot less of is the re-enactments, most of them with a Salinger lookalike slaving over a typewriter on a stage while giant images flash behind him. It's interesting -- I watched this in three pieces: the first hour, then 40 minutes the next night, then the final 25 minutes the next morning. I loved the first hour, full of Salinger's war experiences. The next 40 minutes strained my patience, especially an extended re-enactment of the frustrated author vainly trying to pitch "Catcher in the Rye" to a publisher that decided it was "not for us." There's also cheesy stock footage aboard airplanes and of New York cocktail parties. Filmmaker Shane Salerno doesn't trust us to picture any of these things; he has to bombard us with literal images.
But then I loved the final 25 minutes, which introduces us to Maynard, the wunderkind writer who lived with Salinger and later famously wrote about it. Salerno does jam a lot in the homestretch. He overplays the role "Catcher" played in the shootings of John Lennon, President Reagan and actress Rebecca Schaeffer, but he doesn't dwell too long on the subject. It all builds to a satisfying conclusion, including the Big Reveal -- the report that Salinger has five projects set to be published later this decade.
Yes, Salinger was considered reclusive -- though many talking heads suggests that's the wrong word to use, because the author mixed freely with the town's residents, and he would call acquaintances regularly. He engaged in conversation with pilgrims who visited his property. (Plus, you know, he pretty much stalked young women through the postal service with his "I wrote Catcher in the Rye" line.)
More precisely, Salinger dropped out of popular culture and the publishing racket. He didn't want to be a celebrity. He lived his quiet life -- watching Liberace and Lawrence Welk on TV -- and chose not to participate in The Game. This examination of his life doesn't undo any of that; it merely satisfies our curiosity while ably chronicling those times.
The final shot of Salinger shows him grinning (finally), which makes you think that he might have enjoyed the whole game a bit and wasn't such a tortured soul that whole time. I'd like to think so.
Postscripts
Our New York correspondent saw it first (naturally). She wrote:
I thought the doc had "first-time director fanboy" written all over it.
{Don't actually know if it was his first film} Too many divergent
styles and gimmicks - like a Chinese menu - a little from Column Ken
Burns, a little from COPS, a little from Linklater's animated flicks.
Ugh.
That said, I did learn a bunch of new stuff about the
guy. Especially his pre-Catcher life. THAT I found worth the steep price
of admission.
And finally, here's a link to a powerfully written attack on the filmmakers who would dare to trample the legacy of the deified J.D. Salinger and the good name of the august New Yorker: "Who Was J.D. Salinger?"
WAR WITCH (A-minus) - This is a simple, beautiful film about a 12-year-old in sub-Saharan Africa who is kidnapped by ragtag anti-government forces, forced to shoot loved ones as an initiation, and then savagely corrupted as just another child soldier who kills to survive.
By age 14, as we learn from the opening scenes before flashing back, young Komona (Rachel Mwanza) is carrying another rebel's child and battling to bury the ghosts that haunt her. Writer/director Kim Nguyen tells a compact story with a hushed intimacy that has you rooting for Komona even though you fear that it might already be too late for her to be redeemed.
Young Mwanza, in real life, was reportedly abandoned by her parents at age 6 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She gives a powerful performance here as an adolescent robbed of her innocence but determined to give meaning to the life inside her.
As horrible as this world is, there is still beauty to be found in nature and in humanity. The images captured by Nguyen and his cinematographer, fellow Canadian Nicolas Bolduc, are simply gorgeous, as is the soundtrack, made up of sweet, jangly guitar ruminations from the collection "Soul of Angola: 1965-1975." It's a captivating 90 minutes.
Komona is granted special treatment among the rebels because she can see the ghosts of the dead and sense the movements of the enemy. Thus, she is deemed the War Witch. This essentially makes her the concubine of the rebel leader. However, she spends a lot of time with another soldier, and the two fall for each other. She makes an impossible demand of him, to prove his love and win her hand, and the middle half-hour of the film is devoted to a rather traditional teen love story.
How this girl reconciles the past and strives to give sustenance to the future becomes, in the final half-hour, the stuff of compelling drama.
MUSEUM HOURS (A-minus) - Laden with symbolism, this heartfelt drama about two strangers meeting in Vienna is a reminder to pause and appreciate the little details -- in the handiwork of Mother Nature and of man.
Anne (the singer Mary Margaret O'Hara) is called to Austria as the default relative of her cousin, who has fallen into a coma. Because her funds are limited (she has to borrow money just for the airfare) Anne tours Vienna on the cheap during her down time. Her low-tech adventures take her to the grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum, where she meets kind, sweet, contemplative Johann (the craggy Bobby Sommer).
The two begin to hang out together, with Johann offering his translation services to make it easier to deal with doctors by phone. Anne has quiet moments with her cousin, talking to her and singing to her. At other times, Anne is a real-time traveler, soaking up the sights and sounds of the city at a stroll. Jem Cohen's camera slows down to match her pace. Inside the museum, he lingers over paintings or offers snapshots of detail, the kind of detail that might take you half a dozen viewings to notice.
Birds are featured prominently. Cohen returns again and again to shots of birds. Anne's song to her cousin is about the birds singing. To me, the avian connection serves as the timeless link between modern man and those artists and peasants of the middle ages. Birds live the same type of existence they have for centuries; Cohen reminds us that, for humans, life has sped up impossibly during that time, and the challenge to Anne and Johann is to find the slow lane. (Of course, the cousin in a coma has stopped time completely; what are we to make of that?)
Cohen, a veteran documentary maker, mixes that genre with drama here, to create a deep sense of realism. We are treated to a mini-lecture by a museum docent about the 16th century artist Peter Bruegel; his piece "Hunters in the Snow" (which apparently has a Tarkovsky connection) and others celebrating peasant life are featured prominently.
Cohen has crafted a valentine to Vienna, somehow making it look both grimy and elegant at the same time. His collection of images, both inside and outside of the museum, suggest improvisational filmmaking; its own found art. It's conceivable that Cohen had a scrap of a story, shot footage, and created this movie in the editing room. Then again, maybe he mapped it out in advance exactly how it played out.
And that's the true genius of "Museum Hours." It invites you into the filmmaking process. Like fine art, it demands your gaze and welcomes your interpretation. While it falls short of being a masterpiece, it's an elegant work that lingers in the mind and heart.
Bonus Track
Artur Nunes, "Kisua Ki Ngui Fua," from the "Soul of Angola" collection:
THE ACT OF KILLING (B) - This one is flat-out bizarre. It's Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary about the mid-1960s slaughter of communists in Indonesia, as
seen today through the eyes of the government soldiers who carried out
the mass killings.
It's fascinating yet unsatisfying. For some reason, the former murderers are being asked to re-create the killings for some local B-movie projects. At times they portray themselves (for example in gangster outfits); at other times, they become the victims. This gimmick is apparently intended to shock the audience while evoking some remorse in the perpetrators. But what was intended to be a profound examination of the human psyche and the concept of reconciliation often just comes off as hokey.
This is, at times, a beautifully shot film, with bright colors, glinting sun and showgirls dancing out of the mouth of a giant fish replica. And Oppenheimer is definitely on to something here. I just don't think he gets to the core of the matter. To quote Billy Bragg: Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?
EVOCATEUR: THE MORTON DOWNEY JR. MOVIE (B-minus) - This documentary takes on a fascinating subject, with much drama and intrigue to be mined. And while it faithfully chronicles the rise and fall of one of the first of the right-wing talk-show brutes, the three directors here are out of their depth, turning a very human story into a pop-culture cartoon (literally at times).
Downey burst onto the scene in 1987 -- getting within spittle distance of his guests to tell the pablum-puking liberals to zip it -- and became an instant sensation. He was a loudmouth and a bully, kicking wimpy guests off his set and inciting his lynch-mob of a crowd. (One sharp observer, in reviewing this film, suggests that the audience members whom Downey drew to his Secaucus, N.J., studios presaged the neanderthal Internet trolls who now pollute comment sections.) Downey was the ringleader of a patently offensive, low-information circus, and little effort was made to pretend this wasn't all staged. He made Jerry Springer's subsequent schtick seem like "Romper Room" by comparison. And it all burned out within two delirious years, with Downey dumped from the air and disgraced after he falsely claimed to have been attacked by skinheads in an airport bathroom -- a bizarre cry for help that echoed the Tawana Brawley episode that he himself had exploited repeatedly for maximum ratings.
The filmmakers hammer away at Downey's daddy issues, but never convincingly so. From a roundtable of his former inner circle, we get reliable first-person accounts from inside the Dukakis-era maelstrom. One old colleague, who worked with him in the 1970s on the staff of Sen. Edward Kennedy's office, offers sharp insights into Downey's volatile personality and his various quirks, such as his Thurston Howell sartorial flourishes.
The filmmakers throw a lot at us, but they fail to construct a consistent narrative. The graphic-novel-type animation segments, used for flashbacks, distract from the matter at hand. A time magazine cover of Downey Sr. recurs repeatedly, with Pop shaking his head disapprovingly at his tormented son. Women in the animated segements are invariably depicted as horny teens or stripper-types flashing their panties. It's offensive and immature -- although it is in keeping with Downey's boorish persona: we're told that he once asked a female intern to hold his penis while he peed, and at the height of his fame, he dumped his wife for a woman less than half his age.
A few talking heads are welcome: Chris Elliott, who parodied Downey on David Letterman's late-night show; contemporary daytime talker Sally Jessy Raphael; and attorney Gloria Allred, who admits to a sexual buzz between her and Downey. In a clever move, Elliott and others give dramatic readings from Downey's 1969 book of pedantic poems, in the days when he was going by the name Sean to distinguish himself from the beloved Irish tenor who gave him his name.
Some final scenes show a disgraced and dying Downey (lung cancer from the four-packs-a-day habit he bragged about) trying to make amends for having glamorized smoking, though we don't get much contrition for his significant role in dragging the cultural conversation into the gutter. The sight of an emaciated former brute breaking down on Larry King's show is moving, but that flash of emotion only highlights the overall limitations of this messy mash-up of a movie.
IN A WORLD ... - I held off on a final grade
for this film until finishing my review, fluctuating between a B+ (very
good) and an A-minus (really good, near great).
In the hours after seeing Lake Bell's debut as a writer/director, I had the nagging feeling that this was a pleasant but trifling personal story. And at times this does feel more like a series of skits than a full-blown motion picture. But as it marinates in the brain, this playful feminist tract -- about a woman (Bell as the heroine, Carol) trying to break big into the movie voice-over business -- lingers as a film that is sharply observed and wonderfully written.
Bell offers up a romantic comedy wrapped in a gentle but snarky polemic about a young woman battling the Old School. Bell assembles a winning cast to provide key support. Demetri Martin is puppy-dog cute as her champion, technician and awkward suitor, Louis. Fred Melamed (so delicious in the Coen Brothers gem "A Serious Man") is a treat as Carol's boorish sexist father, Sam, who is one of the elite voice-over men and competes with her for the job of resurrecting the phrase "In as world ...," which had been the exclusive domain of the late, great Don LaFontaine (seen in news clips during the entertaining opening credits). Nick Offerman, sans moustache, is as cutting as ever as Louis' sidekick. (It's always a joy to discover him in such small indie gems.) Comedian Tig Notaro brings depth to the role of wisecracking lesbian Cher. And Rob Coddry and the ever-expressive Michaela Watkins bring subtlety to their elegantly written roles of Carol's sister and brother-in-law stuck in a marriage rut that needs a good jolt (sandwich bar!). Even Eva Longoria, playing herself, is game as she solicits Carol as last-minute vocal coach to help her nail down a passable cockney accent on re-dub. And Geena Davis is perfect in a climactic cameo as a middle-aged producer who provides an essential narrative twist to seal the deal.
Bell seems buoyed by all that support, which infuses her with confidence as a writer, director and the star who holds it all together with comedic chops and charisma. Her everywoman lead character, Carol, is getting kicked out of her dad's free digs (in favor of Sam's trophy galpal who is about Carol's age), and she's not making much money as a vocal expert. We're drawn to Carol's charming habit of surreptitiously tailing foreigners and recording their accents. This running gag will be turned inside out toward the end, when she uses the recording device to play cupid and catch one character speaking fondly of another; the scene is a knowing millennial wink to the sitcom aesthetic of "I Love Lucy" or "The Honeymooners."
Bell is assured enough to traffic in such post-ironic moments while keeping her feminist satire sharp. She's not afraid to poke fun at grown women who talk like babies. Her film-within-a-film -- a trailer for "The Amazon Games," where "The Hunger Games" meets "Game of Thrones" -- parodies her target as well as the old "Ben Stiller Show" would have 20 years ago. And just when the viewer is tempted to dismiss this whole exercise at chatty Mumblecore chick lit, she subverts everything with one short sharp speech from Davis' character -- in a women's bathroom.
It's a master stroke. And it's a substantive statement, one that proves that this film -- and its creator and star -- are no trifling passing fancies.
What might be a great movie suffers from a capsule summary loaded with red flags. Let's break it down:
'GRAVITY' - Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock(1)) is a medical engineer on her first
shuttle mission. Her commander is veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky(2)
(George Clooney(3)), helming his last flight before retirement(4). Then, on a
routine space walk, disaster strikes(5) -- the shuttle is destroyed,
leaving Ryan and Matt stranded in deep space with no link to Earth and
no hope of rescue(6). As their fear turns to panic, they realize that the
only way home may be to venture further into space(7).
1 - First off ... "Ryan Stone"? Is she the granddaughter of Dash Riprock? As for Ms. Bullock, I vaguely recall making some sort of vow after watching the trailer for "While You Were Sleeping" in 1995 to never watch one of her movies, though I don't feel bound by that. I've only seen her in "Crash," one of my least favorite movies of recent memory, and I liked the bits of her performance in "All About Steve" whenever I would stop on HBO for 10 minutes or so.
2 - Astronaut Matt Kowalsky? Is he a regular guy, or what?
3 - I can watch Mr. Clooney in just about anything. I caught the last half hour of the perfect "Up in the Air" the other day, and I marveled anew at his performance.
4 - It's the old "veteran cop on his last day" routine. Gee, I hope nothing goes horribly wrong on Matt Kowalsky's final flight in space!
5 - But then ... !
6 - No hope. So I guess they die in the end.
7 - Sounds crazy, but it just might work!
8 - I feel a little bad that I've referred to Ms. Bullock as America's Puppy, and she might be tolerable in this; she just happens to make movies I have no interest in seeing ... or regret having seen.
9 - Dammit, reliable ol' Ed Harris picked the wrong day to give up sniffing glue.
10 - I missed his turn as Kajut in "Ikingut" (2000).
11 - "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Children of Men" would make my list of top films of the 21st century so far. I think I'll give Mr. Cuaron another go; this sounds ambitious. "While You Were SpaceWalking: 2013."
A.O. Scott calls it "a small miracle of a movie" and "one of the best-written American film comedies in recent memory," a love story starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus and James Gandolfini and directed by the impeccable Nicole Holofcener, "Enough Said." (Now playing in Albuquerque.)
A documentary about the longtime relationship between writers, "Shepard and Dark."
The dramatic story of an immigrant family, "Mother of George."
A documentary about the frequently sampled song "Apache" by the the Incredible Bongo Band, "Sample This."
The inspirational tale of a girl out to compete with boys in Saudi Arabia, a drama directed by a Saudi woman, "Wadjda."
A documentary about the radical group Move and its 1985 bombing by the Philadelphia police, "Let the Fire Burn."
The story of six physicists seeking the origins of life in "Particle Fever."
A woman's return to her homeland and a celebration of music in Afghanistan, "We Came Home."
THE BLING RING (B) - This one might be a victim of high expectations and the small screen.
I really was looking forward to the latest from Sofia Coppola, back on the upswing after faltering with "Marie Antoinette" and reviving with the under-appreciated gem "Somewhere."
Unfortunately, this tale of a Hollywood teen burglary ring is sabotaged by a so-so cast and the sinking feeling that there's nothing really at stake here -- either for the undersupervised kids or the rich celebrities who probably don't even miss most of the tchotchkes that are swiped. We are asked to spend 90 minutes with shallow girls (and their safe gay pal) from a school for dropouts who crave the life of the shallow celebrities they read about and discover how easy it is to rob the stars' homes when they're out of town. (I doubt it really is as easy as checking the news to see who's traveling, Googling their address and then finding a key under the mat or a back door conveniently open; do celebs really have such lax security or never hire a house sitter?) Our hopes are raised at first with wonderfully blase dialogue ("Mischa Barton got a DUI," one character monotones while digging for Paris Hilton news), but the TMZ trash talk gets old quickly.
Katie Chang (as Rebecca) is adequately menacing as the instigator. Taissa Farmiga (Sam) manages a few flashes of zing (especially when wielding a gun the girls find in Megan Fox's house). But Emma Watson (Nikki) comes off as a child actress (she's in her 20s now). Israel Broussard (Mark) is flat as the low-self-esteem dupe who goes along with the girls and scores some killer pink pumps. Claire Julien (Chloe) is underutilized as a fringe member of the gang. These are, for the most part, stupid, soulless teens; why would we expect them to be interesting to watch? Among the adults, Leslie Mann is brilliant in the small role as the clueless New Age-y mom or foster mom of several girls.
Coppola tries to make this all matter. She connects the girls to the celebs by saturating the kids in the club life (where they mostly sit around taking selfies to post on Facebook) or by having them wander around to pot-smoking park outings or classmates' parties, incongruently riffing to rap songs. (They help themselves to other people's pop culture, too.)
The visuals can be stunning. One burglary (at the 37-minute mark) is captured from afar, as the camera gazes longingly at a glass-walled two-story mansion in the hills overlooking LA. We see the small figures flitting from room to room, turning lights on and off, as the camera ever-so-slowly pans in to capture them skulking off. Coppola splashes color to great effect: the silhouettes of the kids prancing across the screen with the christmasy lights of the city twinkling in the background; a backseat-view shot of silhouetted driver and passenger with their neon dashboard lighting the way along a winding road. A sudden car crash feels frighteningly real.
This truly is style over substance. And that may be Coppola's point. I've never begrudged her career's focus on the hollowed-out victims of privilege in 21st century Western civilization. However, she and this cast are content to skim the surface of these girls' descent into the shallow end of modern American culture. Coppola captured such ennui much better with Stephen Dorff's Cobainish actor zombie in the elegant "Somewhere"; here she seems to be spinning her wheels as a storyteller while seeming to be as much of a starfucker as her bling ring is by employing actual stars and using their actual homes and name-dropping designer after designer from her own real world.
In the end, the courtroom denouement and celeb news reports leave us empty. The kids trundle off to prison, where, you suspect, the story is about to get more fascinating. But Coppola isn't interested in some gritty, raw drama; instead, we get one more celeb-style interview and a final Lindsay Lohan reference and the roll of the credits.
